


you are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl

by thecarlysutra



Category: Willow (1988)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Femdom, Love Confessions, Misses Clause Challenge, Pegging, Post-Canon, Spells & Enchantments, Transformation, Witchcraft, Wolf Instincts, Wolves, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Magic leaves a trace, and part of the curse stayed in her blood, and Sorsha never forgot what it was like to be the wolf. Even after her mother transformed her back, the wolf lived still, tucked behind her breast.Many thanks to tigerbright for the beta. Title from Florence + the Machine.
Relationships: Madmartigan/Sorsha
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	you are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



  
Once, as a punishment, Sorsha's mother cursed her. Sorsha remembers the agony of her bones breaking and shifting and twisting beneath her skin. She remembers the color draining from the world as her eyes changed. She remembers falling to the ground as some half thing, and rising as a girl inside a wolf. 

Sorsha's mother had guards throw her outside the castle gates, where she sat alone and howled, begging for her body back, begging to be let in. But as the hours stretched on, the magic dug deeper, and Sorsha stopped wanting those things. She saw a deer peeking out from the forest, taking dainty steps in search of sweet grass. Sorsha’s wolf body, wolf brain, wolf heart knew what to do, and without thinking, she chased the deer down, brambles from the underbrush catching in her coat, and she took it down in one pounce. The bright, raw, wild taste of it made something inside of her sing. 

It took two weeks and another of her mother's spells for the guards to find her in the wood. Sorsha fought, barely feeling the weapons piercing her flesh. All she felt was her heart racing, the sweet bright taste of their blood in her mouth. Her jaws crushed their bones like they were hollow. 

Two men died trying to capture her, but they finally did, and she was brought before her mother in a sturdy net, which held her while the curse was reversed. Her mother tore the brambles from her hair and screamed at her for her willfulness and lack of gratitude, and expected her, she imagined, to forget.

Sorsha never forgot. Magic leaves a trace, and part of the curse stayed in her blood, and Sorsha never forgot what it was like to be the wolf. Even after her mother transformed her back, the wolf lived still, tucked behind her breast.

***

Madmartigan asks her to marry him about every fourth day. 

“Why?” she asks. “So you can have dominion over me?” 

He frowns, and she can tell by the look in his eyes that the thought never crossed his mind. 

“I thought it might be nice to be tethered to something, for once in my life, if it was something beautiful.” 

“Is that what you think of me? You think me a beautiful cage?” 

“A beautiful _tether_ ,” he corrects gently. “That is one of many things I think of you, Sorsha.”

“And what are the others?” 

He speaks poetry about her, of his own volition this time, and she lets him. 

***

The room in the high tower where her mother did her magic stays just as it was after the battle. Furniture is upset, and broken glass shimmers on the floor. Potion bottles smashed upon the stones, the potions evaporated, maybe, or maybe pooled beneath the glass, a worse threat than the wickedly sharp shards. Maybe they’re inert now, the potions, without a witch to wield them. Or … Sorsha doesn’t know. She doesn’t know if magic ever ends. Maybe with another spellcaster, a curse broken … but then, magic leaves its trace. Sorsha stands in the doorway and looks in, and she fights the urge to burn everything in the room to ash.

***

Sorsha swore to protect Elora Danan, and she will. But there are other things children need.

Madmartigan takes to tending the babe without hesitation. He bathes her and feeds her, changes her diapers and plays with her. He sings her to sleep at night, and if Elora Danan cries, he’s the one to soothe her.

Sorsha watches as Madmartigan walks Elora Danan through the castle halls. He holds her in his arms and talks to her like she understands, making up stories about the paintings and tapestries they walk past. Sorsha follows a few steps behind them. There is a part of her that wants to walk with them, to hold the baby, to hold them both, and indulge in the fantasy of Madmartigan’s stories. And there’s a part of her that is constantly calculating the distance to the nearest weapon, should some threat come upon them.

Elora Danan giggles, and yanks at Madmartigan’s hair, hard enough that he grimaces. Sorsha flinches, but his response is gentle. With care and patience, he pulls his hair from Elora Danan’s fat little fist, and he gives her his necklace to play with instead, and they continue their walk through the castle halls.

Sorsha follows, a few steps behind.

***

Sorsha had a false phallus made years ago. A leather harness fits it to her body as snug as if it were her own. The phallus is leather, too, thick and stiff. 

She pulls the harness against her body, fastens it in place. Madmartigan watches her from the bed. 

“I’ve never seen such a thing as that,” he says. 

She laughs. “Surely you see one every time you look down.” 

He shrugs. She approaches the bed, and without asking, he turns over, gets on his hands and knees. 

Her brow creases. “You’ve done this before?” 

“Never with a woman.” 

Sorsha is surprised, and then unsure why. Madmartigan is sweet and easy and he lives and loves loud. She thinks of the way Airk looked at him, and wonders. 

She planned on barely greasing him, making the first time hurt. But he’s being so agreeable, and the way he looks at her … no one has ever looked at her like that, like they don’t want anything from her. Like they’re looking at her just to see her. 

“I’ll be sweet to you,” she says, and climbs on the bed behind him. 

***

Sorsha dreams wolf dreams. It is night, the full moon high in the sky, and she is running through the forest after some prey. She can barely make out the silhouette of it in front of her, but she can smell it, and it makes her _hungry_.

She wakes with her chest heaving, her heart beating so fast she can feel the throb of it in her neck. She moans, fisting the sheets. She wants to rip them to ribbons. She misses her claws and her wolf teeth.

Madmartigan pets her back. His touch is so gentle, and she half hates him, half loves him for it. “What’s the matter, love?”

There’s no way to explain, but he doesn’t ask again. He nestles against her, petting her but not holding her. She’d hurt him if he tried to restrain her now, but he has the sense not to. He’s just there, constant and comforting, and eventually her body calms.

“You move in your sleep sometimes,” he murmurs, stroking down her spine. “Like a dog.”

“It bothers you, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t. But sometimes I worry about it.”

She turns to face him. “Don’t.”

He inclines his head. “Yes, m’lady.”

For a moment, she thinks he’s teasing her, making fun, but then he brings his eyes back up, and she can tell he’s genuine. She scoots against him, puts her arms around his neck, drawing him close. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Letting him love her.

“Kiss me,” she says, and he does.

*** 

Elora Danan has begun to crawl. Madmartigan plays with her on the floor, and he follows her when she crawls away from him, not directing her, only watching, making sure there’s nothing harmful in her path.

When Elora Danan is down for her nap, he finds Sorsha at the door to the tower room. He frowns, and starts past her; she grabs his arm, arresting his movement.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to clean up the glass. It’s not safe.”

It takes her a moment to realize what he’s talking about. “She can’t climb the stairs.”

“Today she can’t. Tomorrow …”

He pulls out of her grasp, enters the room. Sorsha’s heart races. “Don’t.”

“Sorsha—”

“ _Don’t_.”

He stands a few steps into the room, inches from broken glass and spilled potions. He looks at her, and his expression is kind and his expression is pained.

“There’s nothing here, my love,” he says. “It’s just an empty room.”

***

Elora Danan grabs for a flower and ends up with a bee. The insect stings her, and she wails. Madmartigan scoops her up, tries to hold her still and open her hand at the same time. Fails. 

“Come here,” he says to Sorsha. “Hold her.”

She doesn’t want to. All she can think of is dropping her, or holding her too tightly. But she comes over and takes the child from Madmartigan, holds her still while he opens her hand and removes the stinger with his teeth. 

The baby stops crying, and she relaxes in Sorsha’s arms. Madmartigan wipes the tears from Elora Danan’s cheeks, and then he looks at Sorsha and smiles. 

***

The child is in bed. Sorsha stands in the doorway of the tower room, watching Madmartigan sweep up the glass. Spilt potions wet the leather of his boots, and her heart beats wildly in her chest. That could be a death draught, or a transformation spell. He could turn into a mouse, and she’d have no way to get him back. 

“Do you still want to marry me?” she asks. 

He smiles at her. “More and more each day, m’lady.”

“Come out of there,” she says. “We’ll board it up. Elora Danan won’t be able to enter.”

He looks at her oddly. “I’ve finished. There’s nothing here that can hurt her.”

Sorsha’s voice breaks. “You don’t know that.”

Madmartigan frowns. He drops the broom and comes to her, taking her in his arms. He kisses her face. “There’s nothing here that can hurt you, either.”

Sorsha holds onto him as she cries. 

***

The moon is full, and Sorsha feels it pulling her like the tides. 

She lies in bed with Madmartigan. He is sleepy and sated; she rode him with the false phallus until his knees buckled, and then she sheathed his cock inside herself and rode him that way until they both came again, him shouting, her howling. 

She twists a lock of his hair around her finger. “Would you love me if I was a beast?” she asks. 

“Mm. What kind?” 

She hesitates, unsure whether she wants to share this. “A predator,” she says at first. Then, looking at the way he’s looking at her: “A wolf.” 

“Would you kill me? Take my heart? Me or Elora Danan?” 

She considers. Finally: “A wolf doesn’t harm its own.” 

“All right, then,” he says. “You be a wolf, and I’ll love a wolf.” 

She smiles. Runs her fingernails down his ribs until he shudders. She moves over him, urging him onto his back as she comes overtop him. He’s watching her with his pale eyes, the same color as a stormy day at sea. She leans over him, closing her teeth down on the apple of his throat. He exhales sharply, then relaxes, still and compliant beneath her. Sorsha’s wolf heart _sings_.  



End file.
